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Björn Brembs
Björn Brembs
Can someone confirm that JoVE has gone closed access? I'm one of their associate editors and don't know about it.
April 1, 2009 - Comment - Share
I can still access my paper - are you not able to access some papers on JoVE Bjorn? - Jean-Claude Bradley
I sent a JoVE paper to somone else and they said they need a login to get there and that it would cost thousands of dollars: http://www.jove.com/index... - Björn Brembs
Someone pulling your leg? I'm listening to how the flies need to be inserted from home at the moment. - Cameron Neylon
sh*t spoke too soon - it stopped and then asked for a subscription - not looking good - one day free then $US19 a day, $2400 institutional - Cameron Neylon
text is still accessible but video is not...checking Jean-Claude's paper now - Cameron Neylon
Interesting: from here I can get to the video my friend could not view.... - Björn Brembs
Something strange going on - I get the same time out on a couple of other videos just after the introduction but on JCs it seems to run through, except when I played with the timing bar it suddenly threw a subscription notice at me...chances of anyone paying for a subscription must be next to nill surely? - Cameron Neylon
Really strange: I remember having to log in when I first watched the video I linked to above. I didn't bother much. But now I can access all videos without logging even in with a browser I've never been to jove.com with... - Björn Brembs
It is April 1. Could be related to that? - Deepak Singh
'solved' the issue with the browser. Done correctly, I now also can't access the videos without logging in. - Björn Brembs
Seems an odd sort of April fools - and one that will get people's backs up seriously. I couldn't see anything on the subscription page that made it look like a joke. And it seems bizarre to do it with no announcement. - Cameron Neylon
@deepak: possibly, but as I said, I've noticed some login before. Plus, who would prevent access to their own site as a joke? - Björn Brembs
That would actually be a very courageous joke indeed!!! - Björn Brembs
It is a strange one, but today I don't take anything at face value - Deepak Singh
I heard that Nature is going open access, starting today. Can anyone confirm? - pn
On another note, I can watch any video without any login or registration. Just sayin ... - pn
@Paulo: with a browser that has never been to jove.com? - Björn Brembs
I might have accessed it in the past. A couple of months ago maybe. - pn
I can access all videos without logging in when I use IE8 which imported all my Firefox settings. I cannot watch any videos with Safari, which I never use. - Björn Brembs
I can't even get to Jove - Deepak Singh
If this is an April Fool's joke then it is a very elaborate one. The submission page now lists separate prices depending on whether you want to publish with "open access option" or not. There is also a 10 page license agreement as a PDF file. - Lars Juhl Jensen
Bjoern, sorry, but we are indeed closing access. Not an April Fool's joke. We've been trying to get universities to subscribe to us, but nobody seems to be taking us seriously and, given our situation, being free is just not sustainable. However, we are now discussing how to best provide a good blend of access and subscription. For example, authors definitely should have access to their own articles. If you have any other suggestions, all would be welcome. - Nikita Bernstein
Hmm, that's too bad. I'm not really sure what to say at this point. - Björn Brembs
Bjoern, I'll shoot you an email. The situation is more complex than it might seem and we've gone through a lot of deliberation prior to deciding to closing access. A lot also will depend on how our revenue streams line up going forward. BTW, I am sorry you feel left out of this discussion. This is something that we should have told you about and didn't not because we intended to hide anything from you, but because things have been incredibly hectic. - Nikita Bernstein
Perfect timing for the announcement. - pn
Surely papers published as open access must remain open access and only new papers will be closed. Anyone read their copyright agreements? - Andrew Lang
Tried with publications from 2007 - also cannot see these videos - Lars Juhl Jensen
I can see any video, from any publication date. - pn
Can you see the complete videos, Paulo? I can see the beginning of all videos, only after a while does the subscription message come up. - Lars Juhl Jensen
I can watch some videos in their entirety, some others I see the subscription warning. - pn
Where's the "Don't like" link when you need it? - Ricardo Vidal
Clicked "Like" to spread the news, but it feels wrong - Lars Juhl Jensen
Someone made a good point about this on Twitter: what will stop scientists from simply moving to YouTube or the like? - Noah Gray
@Noah The fact that a YouTube video does not count as a publication on your CV. But technically it would certainly work. - Lars Juhl Jensen
But if you don't have anyone watching your videos why would you make/publish them? - pn
+1 Paulo... - Noah Gray
May simply be in the end that the level of production values at JoVE is unsustainable commercially. If so it isn't the first casualty and it won't be the last. But I really can't see how they will gain subscriptions by going closed. They need a different revenue model because it is far too adventurous on a tight library budget. - Cameron Neylon
The JoVE videos do look very good. Long before Mendeley, I toyed with the idea of starting a video biography production company, so I looked into the cost structure a bit more. Always wondered how JoVE could cover the production costs with $1,500. - Victor / Mendeley Team
Always seemed to me that targeted advertising would be the way to go for JoVE. Particularly in molecular biology the brand and the details of the procedure can make a difference. So being able to order directly at the instructions would be appealing to the user and high value to the advertiser. Challenge is in getting the balance of those things right. - Cameron Neylon
@Cameron - that's exactly the case. We are not covering our burn rate now and we are a for-profit that is trying to scale our production, so, if we don't make money, we simply won't survive :\ - Nikita Bernstein
@Cameron As far as subscriptions, we cost very little so, if scientists ask for us, people do indeed subscribe. - Nikita Bernstein
@Victor With respect to covering our costs - you are absolutely right. In most cases that doesn't cover our costs and, when it does, the margin is very small and not enough to cover our burn rate. Not sustainable. - Nikita Bernstein
@Cameron With respect to advertising, we are working on it. My hope is that advertising will eclipse what we would make from subscription enabling (and possibly forcing us) to be completely (or almost completely) open. However, that's not the present reality on the ground :\ - Nikita Bernstein
Also, with respect to OA articles - we do have some articles that are OA (and will be publishing more) and those will not be behind the subscription firewall. Right now there is actually a number of videos that we've left outside of the firewall. - Nikita Bernstein
@Nikita - problem is that your biggest advocates are mainly OA advocates as well. Most people who believe in new media for science communication are at some level. Equally your loudest viewers and the people you want to advocate for subscriptions are likely to be forward thinking and OA-leaning. I worry you've just lost most of your cheerleaders.. - Cameron Neylon
if not all of them ... - pn
As some of you know, I currently blog for JoVE:- http://jove-blog.blogspot.com/ One of the main reasons that I became interested in JoVE was due to being an OA advocate. Since this new development is (also) news to me, Nikita, I too would be obliged if you would also shoot me an email. I wish to mull this over before I consider what to mention in my next JoVE blog post - Graham Steel
Apparently JoVE is not big on opening data for insiders too. - pn
I will be very interested to see what SciVee does in the future based on this announcement... and whether people will be more likely to use SciVee, both to "publish" and to consume science video... - Shirley Wu
This also underscores the fact that sustainability is a problem for open efforts. JoVE is a great idea and we loved it for the OA especially, but now they're in trouble and the only viable solution they can find is to go closed - and off goes the peanut gallery. Is there something more proactive we can do to help, if not JoVE now, other efforts like them from abandoning an open model? - Shirley Wu
Let's just say, "I'm busy"..... - Graham Steel
Am I the only one thinking this is an April 1 joke? - Egon Willighagen
@Shirley Perhaps we should encourage the larger OA efforts (which for ideological and legal reasons are never going to "go closed"), like PLoS/PLoS ONE, to accept articles in the JoVE format. That has a greater likelihood of being sustainable. - Chris Patil
@Graham, we owe you an apology as well. Will email you. - Nikita Bernstein
@Egon Note Nikita's comments above; he is the co-founder and CTO of JoVE. April 1 etiquette generally holds that if you're called on a joke, you should come clean. From what Nikita is saying, this sounds real. - Chris Patil
I'm not sure what can be done in this case. I was hoping to line up some papers but I'm less sure now. I think one central problem is that lots of these efforts are going to fail until someone gets, not just the right business model, but the right place and the right time. In the more general case I think it goes back to that critical friend thing - up front being critical about business models and how they will scale - behind supporting and contributing the papers that helps that happen. - Cameron Neylon
I didn't know that April Fool's had an "etiquette' protocol. Good to know. - pn
Guys, look, we are trying to do as much as we can. Consider - we are not the first to try, but we are the first to get as far as we did. Two of the reasons for our success are: 1) production capacity and 2) money to sustain it. We are a for-profit, which enabled us to move quickly, but also makes it difficult to maintain production without revenue streams. If you have suggestions on how we can build out revenues, we are all ears. - Nikita Bernstein
@Cameron - people love us not because of how we deliver content, but because of the nature of our content that saves countless hours and it's a sad reality that OA in this case is not sustainable or scalable. We have spoken to a lot of people and people do understand our situation. Having said that, you are right: for those who supported us because they thought we were OA, we may lose them. But we actually didn't promote ourselves as OA - we promoted ourselves as a new unique tool. - Nikita Bernstein
Nikita, I think that's part of the problem - we have suggestions but not the knowledge (certainly on my part) of building these things and making them happen on the ground. Which is great for blue skies perhaps but maybe not so good for keeping a cashflow running. I guess this is the bit where the lofty ideals hit the road and we have to really see what works? - Cameron Neylon
On a more philosophical note, I think the present OA model is just as ridiculous as the subscription model and it's just a case of lesser evil. People who publish should be paid to publish rather than paying to publish. An ideal scenario I think may be that, once we generate revenue through advertising, to compensate scientists for the work they do. This opens a lot of interesting questions, but I think this would be a good direction to take. Just a thought. - Nikita Bernstein
@Shirley Thanks. I would love to hear ideas on business models that could be applied. I think the best way to help us is to try to get adoption by universities so that we get solid footing. Then we would be in a good position to open up a lot of our content... may be I am wrong. - Nikita Bernstein
Also, just FYI, we have had a lot of concern over research being published that people do not want to have easy access. For instance animal models. Having subscription significantly limits exposure. - Nikita Bernstein
Sorry - comments crossing. My gut feeling is that those people who like the radical approach to content delivery in the context of a traditional format are generally pretty OA-leaning. But I have not data to back that I'm prepared to admit. But my question would be if subscription access is any more scalable, particularly if you take a hit on submission rates? - Cameron Neylon
Let me see if I understand correctly: you start an Open Access journal, which is for profit. OA advocates jump on the bandwagon and make your journal noticeable online and offline. Everything is great, hunky-dory. Then one day internally you decide that the model you built for it cannot be sustained. You don't tell anyone from the OA advocate community that helped you. And finally, you come on a public forum asking for suggestions on how to build a revenue? Why should I suggest something for free when ... - pn
... are going to charge for my access? - pn
for a minute not concentrating on whether/how to switch from open to closed, in any case this should have been communicated much more openly and clearly - any business should communicate with stakeholders. This is really not good, and will give anti-OA folks ammunition. - Christina Pikas
@Christina I agree. This is a failing on our part. We should have been more proactive. The only thing I can say in my defense is that we are swamped with so many things that it's difficult to cover all the bases. - Nikita Bernstein
@Paulo Let me clear something up. We didn't start an Open Access journal. We started a scientific video publication that we kept freely accessible for as long as we could. The relationship with OA was organic when people assumed that us providing free access was same as open access. Initially we ourselves didn't understand all the implication of OA, but tried to steer clear of the term. Having said that, I feel like we are in a catch-22: we don't want to betray people like you who supported us. On the - Nikita Bernstein
other hand, we don't really have a choice. BTW, I didn't realize how strong the OA sentiment is with respect to JoVE until I read this thread. But, be that as it may, I fully admit that we should have communicated much better than we have. I mean, having people who work with us unaware of this transition is, frankly, embarassing. But we do what we can. Right now our resources are already incredibly stretched and the only thing I can offer is a huge apology for this oversight :\ - Nikita Bernstein
I am racking my brains here. Obviously, JoVE is not cheap to run and they need to be able to make money. Like some, I believe that the pay wall won't solve their problems (not cause it's closed, but I don't think people perceive sufficient value). I don't think advertising will do it either. Their CPM's are probably not high enough to attract sufficiently large ad buys. It could be the basis for a freemium model. Nikita, have you thought about white labeling your platform and recording crews? - Deepak Singh
controversial decision risking the public image of the company, JoVE built a professional science video making team around the US. maybe that could be the solution for the revenue hunger outside JoVE - Attila Csordas
@Nikita, you say that the journal was just "freely available" and never "open access". But when I go to the Internet Archive and look at the 25 January 2008 version of your About JoVE page, it reads: "With participation of scientists from leading research institutions, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) was established as a new, open access tool in life science publication and communication." - Lars Juhl Jensen
You may not have intended to brand yourself as an OA journal but I think most people who have been supportive (myself included) did so precisely because you were OA. I certainly would have never submitted an article if the journal was not OA. To avoid confusion going forward you might want to consider closing JoVE and starting with a new brand built on a closed model. - Jean-Claude Bradley
@Lars- Ouch. - Noah Gray
@Lars I'm now dying to hear the distinction between "open access" and "Open Access". Can you use the Internet Archive to establish exactly when the edit was made? If they thought better of using the term relatively quickly, that's one thing, but if they removed the term yesterday, that's another. - Chris Patil
I cannot nail down the precise dates, but the words "open access" occurred on the "About JoVE" page on both 24 November 2007 and 25 January 2008. In other words, they were there for at least 2 months. - Lars Juhl Jensen
@Jean-Claude What we are planning on doing is offering OA for people who wish to pay to cover the production costs. Your articles have and will remain OA as well as quite a few other articles. In that sense we will not turn away from the OA model offering an opportunity for scientists to decide how they wish to publish your work. What we are closing access to is our content that we subsidized either partially or fully. - Nikita Bernstein
@Lars - Yup. That was before we realized what Open Access entailed. If I remember correctly, we removed shortly after. - Nikita Bernstein
@Jean-Claude: I don't think people have been supportive because they thought we were OA. Perhaps some. But most were excited about the opportunity to see science and reduce the amount of time and effort they spend on reproducing and understanding prior work. After all, OA is a model where the author pays vs. subscription being a model where the institution pays. In the long run, it doesn't really matter who pays to the consumer scientist if a problem is solved. - Nikita Bernstein
By the way, we did hope that the OA model would work and that we would get money from the corporate site, which is who really should be paying for this. And, if the recession didn't hit, perhaps that would have been the case. - Nikita Bernstein
@Jean-Claude: starting another journal from a marketing perspective would be very very difficult. We toyed with the idea of doing JoVE and JoVE OA to clearly differentiate between the two. But I think that, once we label the videos appropriately, this would be the effect. - Nikita Bernstein
Jesus, give a journal a break. JoVE's an admirable endeavour that's broken a lot of ground. They were open access.... it wasn't sustainable... so they had to rethink. Unfortunate but what would people prefer - that they go bankrupt? - Euan
Attila, Deepak, we are actually doing that to an extent. Doesn't make sense to white-label completely, because then we become a production house, which is difficult to scale, market, and we begin to compete in a different market, etc. - Nikita Bernstein
@Deepak: We are not looking to get individual subscribers, but universities. - Nikita Bernstein
The Official JoVE Blog, 16 November 2008: "....Finally, JoVE is an example of an Open Access journal with some Web2.0 capabilities, like the ability to leave comments and label them as agreeing or disagreeing with the authors. The final article can now also serve as a location for continuing the scientific conversation". - Lars Juhl Jensen
@Lars- Double-ouch. @Euan- It is perfectly sensible to change models. I think that much of this reaction stems from the manner in which this information was disseminated....ff is a great tool, but not appropriate for revealing major organizational changes that significantly affect your users in a neg manner. - Noah Gray
A mixed market model could work (pay for OA) but then presumably costs would have to be much much higher? And I'm sure you're already working on bringing down production costs as far as is possible. Is there a risk here of muddling what the value proposition is (or have we already muddled it?). Is the value to "readers" in which case its not a journal but an educational resource, or is to the author, who is disseminating research. - Cameron Neylon
@Euan, that is the big question for me: was JoVE ever Open Access? Does the copyright of the videos still belong to the authors? - Lars Juhl Jensen
Seems to me that you're in a position where you need both to break even which is creating a conflict that is difficult to resolve. - Cameron Neylon
Thanks Euan, I called the Karma Police and they told me to post this (honestly) ++THIS THREAD AT SOME POINT WAS interrupted BY A MUSICAL INTERLUDE++ (40 or so comments ago would have been the most appropriate time). http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Graham Steel
@Noah: Agreed, although at this point I feel I am doing damage control rather than breaking the news. @Lars: we did and we will continue to have open access content, we are just not OA across the board. We have 3 types of content: OA, Free, Subscription. What's changing is the balance. - Nikita Bernstein
Nikita I am relieved to hear that my article will remain OA - that is something that probably should have been brought up in the first part of a general announcement to avoid all this confusion. - Jean-Claude Bradley
Nikita - if you have done your marketing research and you have come to the conclusion that the OA component was relatively unimportant to the contributors - and that libraries will be quick to pay for institutional subscriptions then your new plan should work. - Jean-Claude Bradley
JCB - I'd like to see the results of that particular marketing survey, as well. - Mr. Gunn
us$2400 institutional rate isn't chicken feed these days. Most libraries right now are scrambling not to have to cut rather than subscribe to new things. The best strategy would be to get several faculty from different departments all to make the case to the library that it's needed. It would help if they'd already published some content in JoVE. Also, you would probably need to have usage reporting in place before we would consider subscribing. - John Dupuis
This JoVE news is a reminder that we should talk more about the business models behind our Web 2.0 tools for scientists. If they are not sustainable, even the best technologies and lots of users will not be enough. Somebody has to pay for this stuff... - Martin Fenner
Yes, Martin, I agree with you. But most of the scientist here don't have "more than 8 years of experience in development and marketing of Web-based applications". - pn
This JoVE news obviously should have been communicated differently. But I will start to look more carefully at the sustainability of these tools for scientists, and not just if they are free. And how does FriendFeed make money? - Martin Fenner
Is FF a scientific journal? Has it ever marketed itself (even for one day) as being a Open Access scientific journal? No, FF is a company, just like JoVE, but we make the distinction that FF needs money to survive. Just a matter of how we perceive things, companies. - pn
Wow! And this only got started because a friend could not get access. I'll talk to our library and see what the chances are that they subscribe. I'm an OA advocate, but it would be dogmatic to insist on OA if it's not sustainable. - Björn Brembs
I agree that if it fails move to some other model. But a lot of people here were caught by surprise. - pn
@Jean-Claude: I am glad that's resolved. Sorry for the misunderstanding. - Nikita Bernstein
@John: That's what we are trying to do. - Nikita Bernstein
I agree with John Dupuis; this may be hard to sell to libraries who are cutting - in some cases severely cutting - subscriptions without a lot of push from faculty. In addition to usage reporting, we'd also ask questions about whether we get permanent access to content if JoVE folded - i.e. will you be participating in Portico or another preservation program or will you give us the files so that we can provide access. - Sarah
I have to say, I am fascinated by this discussion... - Nikita Bernstein
I am glad you guys see the predicament that we found ourselves in... if you have any ideas, please feel free to shoot me an email at nikitab@jove.com. Again, very sorry for the way the news broke, however unintentional it may have been. Rest assured that this will be one lesson we will definitely learn from. - Nikita Bernstein
@Nikita, this discussion reminds me of the section in Joshua Porter's book on social web apps about how organizations should and shouldn't respond when they mess up. I don't remember the exact points, but you're getting the right gist, so kudos there... - Andrew Su
about my previous comment about preservation - that's also - obviously - a question that libraries should be asking OA journals as well. But if we're giving a publisher money, loss of access feels a lot closer to home. - Sarah
JoVE to a degree faces some of the difficulties print publications face. Cost of production. The reason I proposed the white label (and I understand the challenges there as well) was trying to recover some of those costs. The question is, what value do people put into production quality? I am a strong believer in Peter Drucker's price-based costing philosphy for such services. What is that price that people (whoever the target market is) are willing to pay? Cost structure should follow from there. - Deepak Singh
I'm with @Euan in that JoVE should be given some slack. JoVE tried and are still trying to sustain a new approach to scientific dissemination in a recession. - Michael Barton
@Nikita Could you consider selling a stake in JoVE to PLoS or Google for example? The advertising along side open access might not be sustainable at present, but perhaps in the longer term. - Michael Barton
Deepak +1 - Anders Norgaard
It would be sad to see Jove go away , Would I pay for it or ask my library to pay for it , Probably not. It seems like the open access model works only if production costs are low. Sadly Joves high quality for "free" was not sustainable. - Hari
@Andrew: Thanks, will check the book out. - Nikita Bernstein
@Deepak: I understand what you mean and we considered it - it's just a difficult and risky direction to take that forces a change in our core competency. - Nikita Bernstein
@Michael: Thanks. As for selling stake in JoVE, sure. If the price is right, I don't see a problem with that. :) - Nikita Bernstein
I think a lot of this also needs to be seen in the light of Sean Eddy's recent book review at PLoS Biology, also see David Crotty's blog post on that. But there are really three questions that play out here. What do we want? What does it cost? And the bottom line at the moment, can we afford it? Or I guess can it be made affordable? Its not clear to me that we can afford the high quality video production - Cameron Neylon
Nikita, definitely understand. Just throwing out ideas with the limited information I have. Know how tough it is to run any kind of profitable business and do right by your user base. - Deepak Singh
@Sarah: with respect to reliability - all these questions have already been discussed. If you'd like to know more, let me know and I can put you in touch with Moshe. @Deepak: Thanks! I really appreciate it! All new thoughts and ideas are definitely welcome :) - Nikita Bernstein
@Hari: the open access model works best if production costs are low, and low production costs are not easy to achieve with video formats (nor paper, for that matter), so publishing based on online platforms which allow much of the formatting to be automated (e.g. Wikis, or anything based on TeX, particularly with suitable templates, dunno to what extent this is possible for video content) has to be explored more fully. This would allow authors to concentrate on content, and reduce publisher's running costs. - Daniel Mietchen
After a good night's sleep, this still feels like a major defeat and setback to me. However, I must agree with the argument that a closed access video methods journal is better than no video methods journal, sad as that may be. - Björn Brembs
I still feel the nub of the question is what level of video production is affordable. At the end of the day it is all "funder pays" regardless of what stream it comes from. All this talk of subscription versus author pays just shifts the pain around a bit. It still hurts. - Cameron Neylon
Cameron is right, in a way, but aren't there many more readers than contributors? Or is that a fallacy? What I mean is that for any given venue, the operating costs are distributed among more shoulders if the recipients are paying than when the (relatively few) contributors are paying. However, on the whole, everybody in science is both contributor and recipient. How can one solve that? Sounds like a computational problem to me... - Björn Brembs
To me there are following entities: government, industry, provider, consumer, publisher. Like so: http://yfrog.com/05fundi.... OA is when the government pays. Subscription is when content consumer pays. And then there are situations when the industry pays for publication (reasons may be marketing, PR, etc.). I think which model will win really depends on the specific content market being covered. I don't think our moving to charge the consumer should discredit OA altogether. - Nikita Bernstein
@Nikita, did you consider partnering up with some arts or film (or science communication, or even science) schools, which might help to (i) run the production at lower costs, (ii) provide you with a pool of experienced people to recruit from (iii) grow the market for science videos. - Daniel Mietchen
@Nikita But for science the situation is special in that the "consumers" and the "producers" are all scientists. And they are all mostly funded by the same "funders" (governments or trusts). So I am a bit worried that your move will not bring you any benefit. There will not be any extra money from your consumers and producers in total. This is why I agree a lot with Deepak. The only way to regard sustainability is to look at the costs. - Anders Norgaard
@Nikita - Ander's point is basically mine. Those consumers are the libraries who are paying subscriptions, whose costs are top sliced from my grants (well they would be if I got any). Whether "I" pay up front or afterwards "I" still pay. Obviously it is the government who pays but its me to a large extent that makes a decision as to whether it is worth paying, whether I am paying an OA fee or deciding whether I want to ask the library to cut another journal so I can see yours. - Cameron Neylon
I am getting the impression from most of the comments here that everyone has come to the conclusion that OA is fundamentally unworkable. Does that mean PLoS is about to fail? If not then as MB says perhaps a partnership with a group like PLoS might make sense? - Jean-Claude Bradley
@JCB Just to be clear, I'm not among those who thinks OA is unworkable. PLoS is doing great. This incident clearly illustrates the importance of building OA into the business model rather than simply acting in a quasi-OA way until you burn through your initial funding. It has to be sustainable from the beginning, and that takes a very specific kind of strategy. - Chris Patil
Here's what John Wilbanks has to say:- http://scienceblogs.com/commonk... - Graham Steel
And he has a good point. I was going to ask the question about copyright transfers but it got lost in the heat of the moment. For that matter there must be some performance rights releases involved as well presumably? PyriteOA is a good one though... - Cameron Neylon
@Daniel: lots of bureaucracy, little advantage. We have no problem with talent pool. Such a partnership doesn't help significantly with market access. - Nikita Bernstein
@JCB: I also don't think OA is unworkable. I think the model supporting publishing really depends on context: costs, demand, etc. - Nikita Bernstein
@Anders: you can link anything to everything citing a zero-sum game - not constructive IMHO. Subscription is better for us because revenue is a function of demand rather than production (i.e. 1 video brings revenue with every subscription we sell). We are already very efficient in our production. Hard to cut costs. Impossible to cut to levels scientists can pay. If scientists could pay 10-20K per video to publish OA, no problem! - Nikita Bernstein
For those who've talked about the prohibitive cost of high-quality video production, I've just been contacted by someone developing another video site for scientists, and they've put up a how-to video which might be of interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Shirley Wu
@shirley: "this video has been removed by the user"...? - Björn Brembs
Yes, unfortunately he took it down to make some changes - i'll repost when it's back up. Bad timing! - Shirley Wu
it is too bad that they had to change the business model but I hope in any case that the journal survives and does well. If they were operating within the safety of a larger publishing house maybe they could have grown to a size that is sustainable by advertisement+authors fees. I hope I am wrong but growing the reader base of this journal using an institutional subscription model will be thought. - Pedro Beltrao
@Nikita, did you think about using video advertisement like Hulu or other video companies use for their content ? Having short video ads before/after the content. Overlays with links to the products mentioned in the video. Maybe producing some of these video ads yourselves for profit. - Pedro Beltrao
@pedro: some of your suggestions have been implemented (like prodcing some of these videos as ads). However, often institutions will not allow advertisements with their publications... - Björn Brembs
But if the advertisement comes before or after the video (publication) then it's like having advertisement on the back pages of a paper journal. The advertisement is not in the middle of the video, and not a product placement. - pn
Good point Paulo! - Björn Brembs
@Pedro, yes, we are actually working on it now. The problem is that online advertising is a difficult place to make a lot of money on and it is even more difficult given the high segmentation of our content and audience. Which is not to say that it can't be done, but it's a lot harder than we thought it would be. This is actually what we were hoping would enable us to avoid going to the subscription model, but it didn't pan out... yet... - Nikita Bernstein
@Bjorn, @Paulo - yes, it is like having the page ads and I don't think there will be problems. - Nikita Bernstein